Many people are happy living their lives in silence - silent from speaking up about injustice, silent from speaking against unfairness, or silent on pure idiocrisy. Well, I am not one of them..and this is my channel of opinions and thoughts. Welcome to Silent-me-not.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

purely because we re not capable of doing so. Perhaps we are narrow minded, perhaps we value "harmony and peace" a little too much. It's not a wonder that our government further exploits these weaknesses by various laws to silent our dissent.

Why do I make sure a generalized claim?

Ask yourself, when is the last time you (a Malaysian) have a healthy open discussion/debate about anything sensitive? When is the last time we can have a discussion in which one side might concede and says, "yes, you are correct and i was wrong. thanks for informing me?"? or when is the last time us as a nation has an open discussion about taboo issues (islamic state? sex? abortion? racial politic?), as most of the "discussion on these issues" have been polemic one-sided talk during political ceramahs.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

This post may not sounds interesting or relevant to those who don't know the story...but i can't just let it go without writing note about it. I dedicate this piece to those little pampered kids out there. :)

Mommy's little pampered kids

One day from now, you maywalk away,To a distance land, seekingfor recognition, in guise of knowledge),Travel the sea, venturethe sky,My dear little kid, I wishI am there with you.

Mommy worries everyday, whether you get fed, or you get prep'ed,for the world out there,is vastly difference fromour little Malaysia,My dear little kid, I wishyou will see my anxiety.

You will see strange menand women,Sleeping together, eating together,strange as it can be,that's normal, my dear little kid,if by chance, you re upset or offended,Rest assured, and Mommy shallbe there for you,my dear little kid. (or at least the minister will!)

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Without knowledge, there will be no freedom. For one's that doesn't know the value of freedom, will never truly appreciate it.

Often a times, when i read current affairs news related from Malaysia, that has slight relevant to the economics of the country, somehow, I got the feeling that Malaysian public is generally economically-ignorance. That is to put it kindly. I would like to say our general public (and the politicians!) are absolutely stupid and retarded in terms of basic economics.

An easy example is the shortage crisis of essential items during festive seasons. By imposing a ceiling price on many essential items such as sugar and meat, the government effectively limits the economics incentive for the supplies to import more of these items. Consequently, we ALWAYS, i repeat, ALWAYS encounter a shortage in the supplies of these so-called controlled items. While it's important to ensure that the suppliers and retailers didn't take advantage of the consumers, we really ought to let the market to price itself.

Ohter notable examples, which I don't have time to describe in details are:

a) existence of monopolistic firms (e.g. indah waters?, syabas? tenaga? tv3?)b) conflict of interest of government controlled "privatised" companiesc) level of involvement of the state in supposedly private investments (thru khazanah, epf, tabung haji etc).d) lack of market mechanism and the presence of market failure in many areas.

Well, recently, a blogger-businessman turned politician, Tony organized a Coffee Talk session , which focus is to clarify basic economics issues to the general public. Hopefully more of these sessions will be held, and perhaps someday, the education ministry will engligthen itself, and began compulsory economic lesson to high school students (rather than some stupid pendidikan moral).

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Some of you might not know, but I am actually an avid student of seismology and earthquakes as they are closely related to my field of studies.

In recent week, there has been a high seismic activity in the Indonesia-Australia fault zone. While it is normal to expect low-moderate(3-4 Ritcher Scale) level of earthquakes to occur of a particular normal year, it's atypical to have a high concentration of moderate-high level(5-6 Ritcher Scale) of earthquakes in a short period of time. I postulate, that, with the series of earthquakes, in reality, could indicate an incoming massive earthquake (7+ Ritcher Scale) in this fault zone. The scientific explanation for it is rather convulated, but the general idea is, the fault is due to slip anytime now, but it's gradually slipping (hence the moderate earthquakes). However, at one point, the moderate slipping will trigger a massive slipping - partly due to the shock effects of slipping at one fault, to another one along the same fault line.

Monday, March 5, 2007

I am not sure whether it is the third-world mentality, or rather the wrong priority on the wrong issues. As a Malaysian, I am used to reading about weird news on snooping, corruptions, sexy dresses, artiste insulting prophet's wife or racial politics. However, the article from the STar Development puts the heat on cities , manage to make its way to the headline of a mainstream newspaper, is indeed refreshing. It's good to know, sometimes, on the back of our mind, we do think about all these more important issues.

In many countries, New Zealand for example, environmental issues such as nuclear technology or greenhouse gases are major political issues. However, in contrast, our politicians like to talk about racial supremacy, or economics benefits (ala developments in the form of government contracts), or your-typical-bash-the-opposition-islamic-values talk. How and when we, as a nation will grow up and start to think about the environment?

The article itself highlighted three issues that seems to compound the problem of overheated urban cities bolded lines are my opinions a) concrete building storing heats and releasing it at night isnt this a good thing?? In reality, the so-called urban heat island phenomena is nothing other than the fact that our urban cities have too much impervious surfaces and too few greens.

b) that brought us t the second issues - lack of green trees. this can be more true. we do need trees..as in big big trees. not just some fancy low maintenance nipah/palm trees.

c) lastly, the use of roof tiles I am surprised that the Department of Drainage and Irrigation (why are they involved anyway?), would raise this issue. In contrary to the suggestion of the use of reflective roof, i personally think roof tiles are much better heat absorber. If all houses/buildings adopt the reflective roof tiles, we ll bound to have higher average temperature in cities because all the sunlight is reflected away from the structures.

Honestly, this article only serves the purpose of awareness. It doesn't have much scientific value, nor any concrete suggestion/plan. ANother one-minute-fame news. Too bad for the hutan-hutan beluka (forest).

On the side note, there's an earthquake in SUmatra! I think one day we ll get a big one that hit singapore/malaysia! Source: The star Earthquake!

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Refering to The Star article "Only the best for 20 varsities" , i can only read with a major skeptism in my mind. Accordding to the Minister of Higher Education, "the hiring of academicians for the 20 public universities will be based on meritocracy to ensure high standards". Three simple questions came to my mind:

1) where are they going to find all these "talented" academicians?Fresh Phd Graduates from local universities or dodgy oversea universities? Or in fact, a bunch of Bachelor graduates or perhaps some with Master degrees. What do they term as talent? Talent for research and academic excellence? or Talent for teaching? To be honest, we just don't have the number. How the ministry intend to attract these talents to Malaysia (or to Kelantan, kedah, Pahang for that matter!)

2) are these universities going to be center of academic & research excellence, or merely degree-mills ?Malaysia's degree mills actually have buildings and classes, just that the content is water-downed and the quality is greatly reduced. As long as the basic is there, it's good enough isn't it? One Prof as a Rector/Chancellor, one or two full Phd Holders as heads of departments, and fill up the faculties with poor quality masters/phd holders.

3) how much money we want to waste on these universities before we realize that money and building alone don't make up a school?

A few years ago, we don't have that many universities, but we have several "world-class ones". At least USM and UTM then have one of the few good engineering schools in SE Asia. UM and UKM was still premier universities of studies related to Asia, SE Asia and Asean. UPM was relatively strong in its partnership with Mardi and FRIM on agricultural research. UIA was truly world class with its niche subject areas as well as English-focused education. UPSI (recent upgrade) was a world class teachers college then, which was also the hotbed for nationalism back in the days. UUM, UiTM, UTAR and other private universites (MMU, UTP,UNITEN) are your recent universities that taken the role of churning out mass amount of graduates (albeit some truly talented gradutes).

Then some brilliant politicians think it's good to have a university at every state and hence we have (be prepared ...):

Saturday, March 3, 2007

I have always been blogging, under my real pseudonym. Blogging has both been a joyous and painful experience for me. Over time, I might divulge some of these experiences. As for now, just celebrate with me this brief induction to the bloggin world.

Silent me not....

Truth shall be spoken and light shall be shone. I don't claim to be a great writer, not one with some insider knowledge, but i just can't sit back to see my beloved country and society, slowly degenerate itself into anarchy.